Sex estimation of upper long bones by selected measurements in a Radom (Poland) population from the 18th and 19th centuries AD

Abstract

Several studies have shown that sex estimation methods based on measurements of the skeleton are specific to populations. Metric traits of the upper long bones have been reported as reliable indicators of sex. This study was designed to determine whether the four long bones can be used for the sex estimation of an historical skeletal population from Radom (Poland). The material used consists of the bones of 169 adult individuals (including 103 males and 66 females) from the 18th and 19th centuries. Twelve measurements were recovered from clavicle, humerus, radius and ulna. The initial comparison of males and females indicated significant differences in all measurements (p < 0.0001). The accuracy of sex estimation ranged from 68% to 84%. The best predictor for sex estimation of all the measurements in Radom's population was the maximum length of the radius (84%), and the ulna (83%), and the vertical diameter of the humeral head (83%). The Generalized Linear Model (GLM) detected the strongest significant relationship between referential sex and the vertical diameter of the humeral head (p < 0.0001), followed by the maximal length of the ulna (p = 0.0117). In other measurements of the upper long bones, GLM did not detect statistically significant differences.

Comparison of Gender Prediction Accuracy between Regression Models Derived from Hand, Foot Measurements and Long Bone Measurements in a Sample of Kolhapur Population

“…16 Likewise, in 2017, amongPoland population with the accuracy of gender estimation by radial length was 84 %. 17 Other long bone such as humerus was also reported to predict gender with the accuracy of 93.3% in an Egyptian sample. 18 Gender prediction has also been calculated by femur dimensions with the accuracy of 72.5% in males, and 85% in females.…”

Sex estimation using radius in a Thai population

“…However, the level of accuracy was only 86.5% for complete radius from South African samples whereas the incomplete radius resulted in 86% of accuracy [9]. In addition, the accuracy of sex estimation function using radius from Indian and archaeological Polish population was less than 90% [9,11,13]. The discrepancy might be caused by the variation across different populations, in which differential environmental and genetic factors affect the degree of sexual dimorphism expression in each population [19].…”

“…In 2001, Mall et al [7] stated that radius performed the best among the three upper limb bones in sex estimation of samples from the contemporary German population. Similarly, previous studies also highlighted that the radius showed high degree of sexual dimorphism, and its dimensions could be used for estimating sex with high classification rates across many populations [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. For instance, the antero-posterior diameter of the radial mid-shaft could predict the sex with the accuracy of 90.4% in the Indian population [11].…”

SexEst: An open access web application for metric skeletal sex estimation

“…Similarly, femoral measurements provided an accuracy of 90.2% in North Indians (Srivastava et al, 2012), 94.2% in Thais (King et al, 1998), and 92.3% in Chinese (İşcan & Shihai, 1995), while tibial measurements resulted in 88% accuracy in a pooled South European assemblage consisting of Greek, Italian, and Spanish individuals (Kranioti & Apostol, 2015). Finally, combinations of upper limb long bone measurements reached correct sex discrimination accuracies of 90.3%–95.7% in modern Greeks (Charisi et al, 2011), but only 83%–84% in a Polish group (Tomczyk et al, 2017) and various long bone measurements from the upper and lower limbs reached accuracies of sex determination from 91% to 95% in a Japanese assemblage (Sakaue, 2004).…”